Times-Dispatch to move out of downtown building next year

The Times-Dispatch building on Franklin Street downtown. (BizSense file)

Following years of downsizing that reduced its footprint in the building to a single floor, Richmond’s newspaper of record is abandoning the downtown building that bears its name and will move from the location it has called home for a century.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch told employees last week that it will move out of the building at 300 E. Franklin St. next spring to a new location that wasn’t specified.

The announcement follows the newspaper’s decision to not renew its lease, which is set to expire in June.

RTD President Kelly Till informed employees about the move in an email Thursday, according to a staff report the paper published Friday morning that quoted part of Till’s email.

“We will be moving out of our current office location at the end of April,” the email said. “Since we are still in the planning phase, more details about the move and our new location will be provided once it becomes available.”

Requests to Till for further comment were not returned Friday.

The report noted that the paper has operated from that location since 1923, when The Richmond News Leader built a building there. The News Leader merged with the Times-Dispatch in 1992, about the time that printing operations were moved to a new facility in Hanover County.

It isn’t clear whether the paper’s editorial and advertising staff will be based at the Hanover plant – a proposal that was considered before the current Franklin Street building was opened in 1999.

The Richmond Newspapers Professional Association, the labor union for RTD newsroom employees, pondered such a scenario in a tweet Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“No word – yet – where news, mrkting folks will go. Maybe Hanover plant?” RNPA’s tweet read.

It added: “Quitting #Rva after generations there would cut literal, figurative bond w/ our core audience.”

Respondents to the tweet included state Sen. Creigh Deeds, who posted: “Wow! An institution leaves the city it purports to cover.”

Deeds added: “Another twist is the sad diminishment of print media. From a farm family that got 3 dailies, and 4 weeklies, to receiving most news online, there is real sadness.”

The decision to move comes four years after the RTD building was sold to Shamin Hotels, the area’s largest hotelier, which purchased the four-story building and adjoining parking deck for about $14 million. The seller was a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway that owned the RTD when the building was purchased. The paper was later sold to current owner Lee Enterprises.

The newspaper has maintained a space on the building’s top floor. (File image courtesy JLL)

Following its purchase, Shamin renovated the RTD’s top-floor space while moving the hotelier’s headquarters into the building. This spring, Shamin leased the remainder of the roughly 172,000-square-foot building to the City of Richmond, which is consolidating and moving its Department of Social Services to the building’s first three floors next year.

RTD’s move will free up the top floor, which Shamin CEO Neil Amin said is being offered to the city and other prospective tenants. Shamin also is planning to relocate its HQ, freeing up more space, Amin said.

“We’ve had people that have been interested in space in the building, so now we’re facilitating those conversations,” he said. “Now that we know that RTD is not planning on renewing their lease, we can now start those conversations, which I’ve already done.”

Amin said the RTD had previously notified Shamin that it did not intend to renew its lease. He said the five-year lease was scheduled to end in June.

Lincoln Saunders, the city’s chief administrative officer, said the city would consider adding the RTD space to its footprint in the building. He said DSS intends to move into its space next summer.

“No decision has been made, as we just learned about this this week, but we do intend to tour the space soon and consider whether it meets any of our current space needs,” Saunders said.

Amin said the space also could appeal to smaller office users.

“I think for some nonprofits it’s nice. It’s also because we have the parking and you can walk to Capitol Square. There’s a lot of advantages with the location,” Amin said.

As for its own HQ move, he said Shamin is considering options but hasn’t selected a location yet.

RTD’s pending move adds to other news in Richmond’s media scene.

A week earlier, Virginia Business magazine was acquired by BridgeTower Media, which also owns locally based Virginia Lawyers Weekly.

Meanwhile, The Richmonder, a news nonprofit led by a group of former RTD and Virginia Mercury journalists, is slated to launch next month.

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